Get Lost to Get Found

Getting lost in yourself is a good thing.
Photo credit - Link

You do not choose to lose a part of yourself. It can be the tedious drudgery of a life that is not enriching you. It can be the unfulfilled childhood dream that you have had when you were a little kid that never forgives you for getting forgotten. It can be the sense of loss after a broken part of yourself. A broken relationship with a lover, a friend, or a family member that keeps you up at night.

But sometimes, it takes only an acknowledgement that when you feel lost, it is usually because of a broken relationship with your real self. You lose yourself in all the needs to be done instead of what you want to do.

So when these times come to you, it is a good idea to wander about. Literally by going places by yourself or just doing something that you can enjoy on your own. You might be more loving and accepting of yourself when you get into the habit of giving yourself some time.

The one thing about getting lost in yourself is adding more value to your own self worth. Spending time with yourself adds worth in all accounts. Time is a precious commodity you rarely give to yourself because of the rat race you might be in.

So yeah, pack an overnight bag and be someplace you have never been. Learn to be with yourself and enjoying that time on your own. Be selfish because it is not entirely a bad thing to be once in a while if it means not losing yourself to the demands of your life.

As you know, trying to get lost and get you found in the end.

Why Write?

So, why do you write? You might find the reasons familiar or funny and maybe even rings true.
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I write because I have had good English and Literature mentors who taught me phrases, sentences, paragraphs, structures...and made me realize words do have rules but writing can bend those rules to communicate better. I am not one to grunt about traditional grammar but finding ways to communicate with words might become a problem. Now with more people inclined to prose and indie arts, I see no reason to further my need to explore how to use words  in an unorthodox way indeed. People have open their minds by often reading words that allow them to think they can in the most unusual way.

I write because my thoughts are worth being written and read about. Not because I am wanting attention, but rather it is fun to see how people would react to an alternate universe that my mind is actually capable of. Ideas are gateways to conversations and the sharing of ideas make me fuzzy and all warm inside. And like-minded people are actually so hard to find, even harder than finding that one true love. Because you can love someone most of the time but you cannot think like someone all the time. And talks with a like-minded person is so engaging you can forget your topics just because you are such having a darn time to keep track of the wonderful things you talk about. 

I write because imagination can come alive in words. Award winning writers tend to have good creativity in wielding words to create worlds that can take you places. And yes, imagination set with good writing is a good free ride to anywhere you might like to go. Writing is a good medium to tell a story because words are universal and universal is a prism of perception that most people can connect to - however they understand it. And when you write so good, a fandom usually emerge and you find yourself people who believe in your characters, story and know that what you thought possible can be.

I write because I was born to. Cliche and heard so many times, I can hear your eyes roll. I cannot tell you how I started writing on the get go. But I can only tell you this. i have done mundane and crazy things in my life, mostly out of randomness and inconsistency. But writing is the one thing I cannot live without. I do not know how my parents made me and who the heck in both side of the family writes, but I do. Maybe a predetermined flaw in the genes might have caused this unending itch to put words together and try to make sense. Writing. It is the one thing I can do in whatever state of life I am in.

I write because I am not good in self expression in real life. I tried visual arts when I thought I was a hot mess but I still ended up writing anyhow. Visual arts was one I can express myself partly, but writing can tell me about myself more than any other artistic or creative medium I have tried. Writing is my escape to negative brooding and over thinking. Because writing is sharing expression and if it can help release someone else's emotions and notions, then it becomes a tool for the soul to help touch someone else's life.

I write because there are stories and insights that can help people. People who read some of my public or private works have connected with my writing. And it felt like a service to these people to let them reflect and ponder their own lives with my words. Some writing might be for technical and sometimes boring manuals and such but it helped people understand how things work. More creative writings entertain people too. But touching writing can inspire people to do something in their lives and that is the best reward for any writer to have.

I write lastly, for myself. It might be self serving to say but writing is my own therapy. All this craziness and energy inside me cannot be contained by the drudgery of my daily life. A part of me will always yearn to inspire and become a story. And this is what writing do to me. Keep me aware of my own voice and help me spread that tiny bit of what I might tell someone to the real world. Writing is my own self conversations with the world. And I am crazy enough to know judgement and achievement does not always go together but at least I put it out there. Validation is only a plus to the inner peace writing does for me.

So why do you write?  

Where Are You Taking Me?

Let the free bird inside you out - curiosity can let you rediscover who you really are.
Photo credit - Link

In the odd days that come by, there are sometimes the gut feeling or the hunches that you just have to take action for. It might be the sudden urge to take a different route in going to work or how you get there. And then you get to work a little bit earlier and find out a hidden patch of scenery on the way.

There are also times when a guess can make you lose a bit or a lot. Like betting on the 6/49 lotto can be a one in a million chance but it can become part of your monthly budget even when you do it once a week. Or you took an uneducated option of investing in stocks that just got a bit ugly just when the value was spiraling up the charts.

Nonetheless, seeking uncertainty can make you realize who you are and who you can be. This is the sense in pushing your own envelope and putting yourself out of your mundane comfort zones. It does not matter how little or how important your uncertain steps are - just do them in a consistent period and you get to find out who you really are in the end.

Something or nothing can come out of your effort to be unsure, but the sense of learning and experiencing the other facets of yourself (some you do not know you have them in you) can be rewards by themselves. You give the universe something to play with when you are uncertain. You are asking the All Powerful to a challenge to surprise you once in a while.

So do not disregard these hunches or urgency to take a vacation from the usual. Go for the ride and refrain yourself from asking where-are-you-taking-me questions. Just learn what they have shown you at the end - a prism of who you really are in the big picture of things.

Or maybe life may just surprise you out of your mediocre routine. Perhaps uncertainty experiences can build your own strength to be, well - you. Never stop learning about yourself. Never give up on knowing your own potential.

The Company You Keep

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When you are left with the least company you usually meet, you get to rediscover who you usually forget.

When you grow older, you get to terms that you must be alone once in a while but you still dread becoming lonely. Friends are like your soul sustenance and keep you feel outside of yourself in the great big world. Their value is understated but you know without them, your world is a bit weary to live on. Your dependence on their existence is so familiar your life would feel a lack in that space they have filled individually. 

The people we are fond of usually have similarities in who we are. They can tell you good and bad things about the world - and yes, even about yourself - but they remain beside you at all times. And somehow, they always find a way to make you laugh and cry almost simultaneously the reasons why they are in your life does not find an answer at all. 

But how about the people you randomly meet? How about the strangers on the bus looking at you without uttering one single word. As human as you are, you know that if you do not give something of a worth, they do not matter at all - at least to you. The perspective you gain from different personalities who you cross paths with can influence you so subtly, you would not notice unless you pay extra attention.

But as the universe has some applicable laws no matter how cosmic, these people who do not matter to you at all has somehow found their way into consciousness. You are connected to them - be it at the same time you see each other on the cafe at lunch breaks or the guy that reads in the newspaper stall before you reach work. You do not know them, but you recognize them and your routine would not be the same without them being a part of it. 

So, do they matter at this point? Even if you haven't shared drinks or exchanged numbers yet or do not even bother to say hello?

You see, they can remind you of that one person you always have by your side but you do not acknowledge - yourself. You have been told to always thinks outside yourself to be able to become humane. But does ignoring your sense of self, makes you more noble?

It is a tricky question to answer. When you say being selfish can be deemed bad, but not knowing yourself is foolish - you are stuck. Your efforts of finding the id and ego work together can be challenging. 

But if you get to spend more time with yourself and feel like you are outside looking in, you can doubt how well you know yourself. They say if you cannot keep your own company bearable, who can you spend your real self time with?

Can you look at your own shadow without wincing at what can stare at you back? Is there something about yourself that you like most or least? Is there something about you that you have not settled with?

Being introspective can help you ground yourself once in a while. You might not like yourself totally, but you can learn to accept what you are and what you are not. 

And by doing that, when you look at people, you can see they are all like you. Just finding out who they are by living the life they know. Getting lost, ignored, bothered by everyday life and neglected philosophies are all but human experience. An attempt to answer the most important question to ask yourself:

"What am I here for?"

Uncertainty

Uncertainty can be your answer to the most of your life turns. There are no assurance no guarantees. Only your inner strength, humor, and faith can truly make your chosen path your very own destiny. Claim it! Life can surprise you once in a while with impossible things called miracles.
Photo credit - Mine

Begin Again and Again

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Some things are good to begin with but better never ended at all.

Have you ever started something with such enthusiasm you burn out before you reach completion? Yes? Well, you might be guilty of being a fire starter then. Well not the arson tendency type but more of the procrastination type. 

We have always these ideas circling in our minds that gets you when you are just staring in blank space and in that moment, they seem to be great ideas indeed. And then you realize you try to fit these great things into the mundane real life and somehow along the way, you fail to follow through.

And inevitably, these great ideas go to the back burner and you say your temporary inclinations can be left to do in your next five years. But the next five years never said you will be ready to launch your great ideas. Nothing in your life will ever will. 

If a great ideas has been in your plans, then you owe it a try once in a while. Not in a great while, but in a reachable plan. 

Ideas come to you because they are meant to be lived. Meant to have a chance not only to exist in your mind, but to be tested in the ever changing currents of your life. If this one great idea can work in your life, what can stop it from working in someone else's life too?

The ability to turn an idea to reality is so intrinsic in each one of us -- we can dare say we are all creators by nature. Humans have the facilities to control at least some of their environment partially, it is a sad excuse not to use all these resources to generate what we have in our minds.

Blame it on commercialism or social norms or limited expectations that we tend to put off what we really have been thinking to do for a long time. People tend to build bucket lists, goals, vision boards and many other forms of expressions of their dreams - they can all be haunting fragments of what you can actually be capable of doing.

So do not be afraid to be labeled a fire starter. We all are. Successful people often are fire starters on their own - misunderstood, judged, and underestimated often. But never be afraid to begin again and again. There is bravery involving the art of igniting passion for life, and it can never end. If you let it end, you will loose the spark in your own life. You will succumb to the dreams of others. Why do that when you have fabulous dreams and ideas yourselves?

So start the sparklers! They might ignite the hidden passions and ideas you kept too long let them shine even for just fleeting seconds for the world to see. And if that does not do it, begin again. Never let it end you see. 

Celebrate Success...Celebrate You!

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Success is perceived differently between males and females. When a successful career woman comes to view, most people would wonder what she might be lacking of - and turns her negative points into big deals. They won't be looking at how big her achievement is or won't just go into details about why she became an achiever. Sadly, most people would likely observe her snappy wits coming across as offense or her no-sorry attitude in taking more of her work means she has no social life or refuses to become a domesticated wife. 

Compare this notion of success when a male comes into view. Most people would look at what he has achieved and ignores or instantly forgives his shortcomings. Society excuses males of their erring behavior just because they achieved something. Successful men who cheat on their wives are deemed normal or part of life. Successful men who lack time for their family are forgiven because they carry the burden of being achievers. 

Something is off balance here.  This has been the fault of society's dogma for women to be casted as the nurturers instead of achievers. Nurturers tend to tune out their own worth instead of celebrating their achievements because their go-getter attitude comes in conflict with their caring side. But we have to break away on the whole dogma and we also consider the other side of the line.

Males who tend to be nurturers are deemed failure for being un-achievers. In this changing times, males who tend to stay at home to help out their wives that might probably be working are perceived weak or lack initiative to take on the role of provider. In uncertain economies, role reversals are only expected and should be taken by both genders as a situation both should adapt together.

Maybe if we individuals start to truly acknowledge that sex role reversals are possible in this modern world without the pre-conceived notions of dogma and society - we can make both successes from both species more of a celebration than a condemnation. When we based success as a non-gender situation, then we can truly embrace ourselves as individuals. Measure of success would drastically change - it is not about being a good mother, a good provider - it would become more of your little achievements as you.  

Success is about being and having a well-balanced life. It is about acknowledging your own baby steps in achieving something far more greater than dogma yardsticks - becoming you truer self by engaging into something you truly love doing. People who are both successful and happy  are the people who went ahead and did their own thing.

So maybe starting with that you want to do is the first milestone to your success. You can be inspired by someone else's success but remember you can never own it. We all have our own struggles and thus we are entitled to our own sucess and celebrations.

So don't compare yourself to other people. We are all born unique - and logically speaking - we can only achieve our own success and no one else's standards or dogma can make it of lesser importance or worth. Do not be sorry if you think you have not lived up to anyone's standards - you should be celebrating.

Celebrate success and thereby do not hesitate to celebrate you! 

Choosing Happiness

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I choose happiness no matter which side I am in.

Have you ever wondered what lies behind the reflection you have the mirror. Do you look at it so closely, you loose sight of the imperfections that dwells in your eyes?

Yes, the eyes. You can see the soul inside the eyes, they say. Eyes can give you away, and eyes can hide something to tell about. But the same eyes can expose you to the truth at hand. Perhaps that is why the mirror and both its sides can hardly look at each other hard. They never meet eyes. This is how most psychologists would describe the image of the id and the ego. Self-perception is not an easy subject to tackle. 

That is because both sides of the mirror are usually at odds with each other, the other side reflects while the other side is shunned in the dark. But remember, it depends on which side of the mirror you prefer and what your eyes would like to see. Most wise men have reached a level of marriage between these two sides, the side you think you are and the side that you actually are. Maybe that is why they ooze with such profoundness - all sides agree on something at one point.

If you ever tagged yourself as neutral or trying to balance objectivity and subjectivity, at some point in your life, you get to a certain dilemma where something bad can give something good and something good can only make matter worse. You harbor the Pollyana personality that everyone that is a bit jaded or cycnical can only make it out as being a fake. But deep inside, you know you are not. You know it is the only choice to be happy of being who you are - choosing to be happy with what you are. 

Rules of engagement defines how to achieve the balance of being the surface between two sides. But you become stoic, sometimes even toxic dwelling on the middle. You tend to be on halt, be indecisive, and in the end get lost. Life is never black or white but dwelling on the gray also does not define who you can become. 

Maybe it is the universal law that says you got to choose as you are the master of your ship and no one else can make the decisions in your life but you. So choose to be happy. Why choose gray, black, white? There is always the rainbow. 

You Got to Get Ruined

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A jump might ruin your balance but it sure makes you alive! (A note to self)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

6 am and the workaholic got up to face a brand new day. Stressful mornings and Mondays are not ideal for embracing the start of the week, but heck, got to do the motions to earn the daily wage. Got into work a bit late, tired, spent, and wishing its already weekend. 

Familiar? Yes, this is the usual day for a yuppie. A tired yuppie. Does not matter how much pay you take home, but looking at these people make you go want to ask them, "So where is the rest of your life?"

Answers can range from: None. Nada. Not happening. Not until that filed leave. Still got work to finish...work has literally became the excuse not to live life! Better take a look in the mirror and someone older might look back at you!

So before you hit the panic button, knowing this might be you, hold on a sec. Assess yourself, are you falling into the drudgery of your own life? Has your routine have you wishing it was all weekend on weekdays? Then wake up and smell the coffee ~ all yuppies tend to do that. Not because they have to - just because they have not yet figured out what makes them complete and utterly contented. If you find yourself in this kind of rat race, then step back. Do you really want to work like this and miss the rest of your life?

Ideal as it may sound, you got to get your life back. You got to get ruined. You got to hit the rock bottom so you can hit your noggin into something solid to shake you back into real life. Repeat that, real life! Haven't you notice you become philosophical whenever you face failure? Aside from justification purposes, really, you get a lesson or two. All up to you if you manage to learn from them of course. 

Being vulnerable teaches you to be humble. It teaches you to draw your strength not from what you have accomplished or have but rather on the person that you have become. Accepting failure takes a lot more courage than gaining over the adversity you might be facing. Getting ruined means giving yourself a chance to piece yourself together again. 

So if you are hitting a rough patch, breaking up, lost your wallet, or really just being ruined, accept it. Just think of the ancient ruins in Greece - they are there to remind us how a great civilization can crumble without reprieve. Life is a bitch, I heard someone shout out today, but you can bitch back too no matter how ruined you feel. 

Life do not allow you to just do the motions to be alive. Life is uncertain to keep you guessing what happens next in your real life. No matter how much you hide yourself in work loads or some excuses, life will still bitch at you. He is like that prefect that keeps a constant eye on you when you become too routinary. 

So when you are at your ruins, keep that head up. Still search for the everyday magic that drudgery can take away in your daily life. Keep looking for the magic instead of the obstacles before you. If you cannot find luck, then create your own opportunity. Do not just cringe (well, at the start its a natural reaction) when life gets you. Life fetches you every now and then to keep you grounded. Just to keep you real. 

My Regular Miracle

written 4.46.2009, my room
photo taken by me St. Francis' Church, Maa, Davao City

Like a pill, an antidote

The One I cherish most

I ran away, far

He follows me and find my scars

With His words I tremble in fear

His touch bring me to tears

And then I feel with His will

I slowly lift my eyes and heal.

He points my puzzle to solve

Patiently, He creates the broken mold

Of my true self that age in pieces

He picks the parts and gently seizes

The love that can give the broken

And returns what has been stolen.

Everyday, He walks beside me

No matter the road I chose to be

He allows my freedom to roam

Never made me lost my way back home.